The Bloodhound Project
Supporting BLOODHOUND at the Royal Bath and West Show

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Supporting BLOODHOUND at the Royal Bath and West Show

Education News

Monday, 6 July, 2015

The BLOODHOUND project attracted and engaged tens of thousands of excited visitors at this year’s Royal Bath and West Show. Adrian Polglase, Rolls-Royce BLOODHOUND Ambassador, relates his experience.

With my wife Kathryn and son Theo who came to visit me on the stand at Royal Bath and West Show.

As a BLOODHOUND Ambassador I run a science and engineering club at Sidcot Junior School in Somerset as well as visiting schools and supporting events like the Royal Bath and West Show. This is a big contrast to my day job where I work for Rolls-Royce supporting defence customers’ engines in service, including the EJ200 engine that is part of the power behind BLOODHOUND but is normally found powering the Eurofighter Typhoon.

Uniquely this year I had the opportunity to attend this year’s Royal Bath and West Show for all four days as a Rolls-Royce BLOODHOUND Ambassador. I am proud to support the project and at the Show it was great to engage with so many excited and enthusiastic children, adults, parents and grandparents.

Rolls-Royce aims to reach 6 million people through our STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) activities by 2020, and supporting BLOODHOUND gives us an excellent opportunity to showcase world-class, cutting-edge engineering and technology, and inspire the next generation to pursue careers in STEM subjects.

Putting on a show

The BLOODHOUND K-NEX tractor ready to race.

We had a large presence at the show. In the Air-shelta – a big inflatable tent – we had a full-size replica of the car and a K-NEX track on which you could try your hand at beating the BLOODHOUND K-NEX tractor. Then, in the Imagineering tent, we had an interactive car, 3D printer, BLOODHOUND driving simulator and loads of other hands-on experiments and components. The picture at the top of the page is my son Theo driving BLOODHOUND to 1012.6mph over the measured mile.

Both the permanent education team and the other Ambassadors were really welcoming and enthusiastic, producing a great vibe throughout the week, with everyone focused on the goal of engaging with the public and inspiring as many people as possible

Presenting the facts

The Project provides us with some inspiring – and frankly mind-blowing – technical facts. For example, at its top speed the Car would cover four and a half soccer pitches in 1 second; a mile in 3.6 seconds; a marathon (26.2 miles) in under 1 minute and 40 seconds; and London to Edinburgh (414 miles) in under 25 minutes.

Another fact we explained to visitors was that the 5 litre, 550PS Supercharged V8 Jaguar engine drives the oxidiser pump for the rocket motor and will pump 11 litres of hydrogen peroxide per second (about the same as emptying the average car’s fuel tank in five seconds.)

Motivating future scientists and engineers

The most enjoyable aspect of being an Ambassador is seeing the reaction from children (and parents) as they learn about the Car and participate in the activities like the K-NEX cars: they are really excited by their achievements and thoroughly enjoy the hands-on activities that we support. It’s a privilege to be part of a team whose aim is to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers.